by Jon Grilz
Kevin didn’t say anything, but he continued to twist against his restraints.
Charlie looked over at the contraption on the counter. A clear liquid had started to drip into the jar. “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to, Kevin. Regardless of that cigar thing I did earlier, I took out most of my frustrations on your buddy Clarence. I figure you’ll either tell me what I want to know so I can let you live or you won’t. If you won’t, I’ll kill you and find some other way to Damon.”
“You won’t do that.”
“And why not?”
“Because I’m the only one who knows where the meth is,” Kevin said, sounding as if his confidence was coming back, if for only a moment.
“Actually, that’s where you’re wrong,” Charlie said as he put his mask back on and walked over to the table. “See, I don’t need the drugs. I just want them. Unlike you and your junkie clientele, I know the difference between the two.” Charlie squatted down on his haunches and looked at the clear liquid forming in the jar. “How old are you, Kevin?” Charlie asked, keeping his attention on the jar.
“Thirty-five.”
“So you graduated college almost fifteen years ago and just started cooking a couple years ago? What were you doing before that? Working in some lab running tests?”
“I worked for a food manufacturer, helping to develop frozen foods,” Kevin said.
The response made Charlie turn around on the balls of his feet, remaining in the squatted-down position. “In another time, another place, I’d have been interested to hear more about that. Sounds a hell of a lot more interesting and safer than cooking meth.”
“Listen, I didn’t have anything to do with that whore—”
Kevin didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence, because Charlie was out of his squat and across the room in a blink. Charlie slammed a right hook into his chest, and Kevin tipped over backward in his chair, smacking down onto the cement floor.
“Don’t you dare say anything else about my sister,” Charlie hovered over Kevin, and even with the mask on, he felt his face twist and redden. Kevin twisted his head away in anticipation of another strike, and Charlie pulled his fist back but stopped and walked back over to the table. He then, very delicately, removed the jar from the spigot and carried it over to the prone Kevin, taking measured steps. For a moment, he just stood there, looking down at the helpless chemist. “From your schooling,” Charlie said, his voice flat as he did his best to calm himself, “do you remember what pyroligneous acid is?”
Kevin’s eyes widened, as if he knew all too well what it was. He didn’t say anything, though, and just coughed and groaned some more.
“Sometimes it’s called wood vinegar. I heard that back in the Civil War, they tried to preserve meat in it, though it didn’t work well. After all, it’s a carboxylic acid, and it can be used to make all kinds of nasty gases. The real concern, at least for you, comes not only from the fact that it can burn your skin, particularly your eyes, but also that it is highly flammable and can explode or create highly corrosive and toxic gases.” Charlie squatted down next to Kevin, who had stopped coughing and moving altogether but was sweating profusely. “One time I was doing some work in a bad place, and I saw a guy get gasoline poured down his throat. They gave him a cigarette and a blindfold, like it was an old-fashioned firing squad, and lit the cigarette. The flame sparked and followed the fumes from the gas into his stomach, burned him from the inside out, and that was just gasoline. This, my friend, is acid.” Charlie set the glass jar down a foot away from Kevin and walked back to the milk crates and grabbed a roll of toilet paper. He tucked the end of the toilet paper into Kevin’s shirt collar and rolled the rest toward the door. Charlie took the edge of his shirt sleeve and dabbed Kevin’s forehead. “Hold still,” he said and set the jar quivering, just above Kevin’s eyes on his forehead. He watched the liquid tremble, but the jar didn’t fall. “Of course, I need you to talk a little more, but I figure if the fumes ignite, I’ll have time to put it out before the fire melts you. I just hope your lips don’t fuse together. Course, then I could always just cut them back open with a box-cutter, but it just starts getting gruesome from there.” Charlie didn’t bother to look down at Kevin; he just stood and followed the trail of toilet paper to the door. He pulled out his lighter and clicked it open. “Last chance,” he said.
Kevin didn’t say anything.
Charlie took only a second to wonder if it was out of fear of the jar splashing onto his face or if he really was going to let it happen. “Okay,” Charlie said, then flicked the lighter.
“Wait,” Kevin said. His voice was just above a whisper, and Charlie barely heard it over the sound of his lighter flint being sparked.
“Did you say something?” Charlie asked.
“Wait,” Kevin repeated. “I’ll tell you where the meth is.”
“How about you tell me right now? I’d rather not get any closer at the moment.”
“How do I know you won’t just kill me?” Kevin said, his lips barely moving.
“Because if I believe you, then kill you just to find out you lied, I’ll be deprived of the opportunity to come back and kill you again.”
“I just delivered the last of the shipment to an old storm cellar just outside the city, not more than two miles from the lab.”
“Security?” Charlie said.
“No one—just a storm cellar,” Kevin barely whispered, his lips not moving.
“How do I know you aren’t leading me into a trap?”
“The shipment isn’t supposed to be picked up until ten, and they’re usually late.”
Charlie looked at his watch; it wasn’t quite eight. He definitely had time, if he trusted The Baker. “Got an address?” Charlie asked.
Kevin actually did and repeated it three times.
Charlie repeated it back and thanked him. He turned to walk out the door.
Once again, in that same quiet, trembling voice, there was a “Wait.”
Charlie looked back. “What?”
“You can’t leave me.”
“It’s not like I can trust that you’re telling the truth. I’m not just going to let go and hope for the best. That would be silly.” Charlie could see a tear roll down Kevin’s cheek, and he sighed. “Fine,” he said and walked back over to Kevin and snatched the jar off his head.
Kevin screamed out as a drop splashed on his cheek. He blinked a couple times and stared up at Charlie.
“What?” Charlie asked and took a sip out of the jar. He coughed and squinted as it burned his mouth and tongue. “You’ve never made moonshine before? I might have fibbed a little about this being pyroligneous, but I wasn’t lying about this stuff burning like hell and being flammable. I don’t know how those guys in the bayou do it.” Charlie set the jar down next to Kevin and told him, “Relax. You look like you could use some sleep. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” When he reached the door, he turned and spoke over his shoulder, “Though, if you’re lying to me, if I see even one person out there, I’m gonna come back here and melt your eyes. Anything you want to amend?”
“No,” Kevin said.
Charlie believed him.
Chapter 22
In some ways, Charlie kind of liked Kevin, for what that was worth. He seemed like a smart enough guy who’d just gotten caught up with bad people, and he figured his way out of it was to do bad things. When he realized there was money in those bad things, that sealed the deal, as well as his fate. That was always a mistake. Money always clouded judgment. Then again, that was exactly what Charlie was counting on.
Driving out into the night reminded Charlie of driving through the middle of Nebraska or even the desert between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. He’d seen both on a road trip when he turned twenty-one, and a few friends of his had decided they were going to take a trip out to the West Coast. Nebraska was painful, and past Omaha, there was a whole lot of nothing—just flat plains reminiscent of people living in frontier times. For all Charl
ie knew, there were homesteaders out there who still used outhouses and collected their water in wooden buckets from a well. Charlie kind of liked that idea, though, all that peace and quiet and having to fend for one’s self, with no other hassles or responsibilities beyond basic survival. Then again, wasn’t life always about survival?
The storm cellar wasn’t all that far away, and the directions were simple. At one point, Charlie wondered if he should mention to Kevin that he was just a building down from the lab, that he’d driven in a wide circle before returning back to town and throwing him in a closet. Those old, thick cement walls were well insulated, probably with asbestos, since he hadn’t heard the police or fire engines come to put out the fire. He had heard some pounding on the door at one point, some beat cop working the door-to-door to check for witnesses, but the cop gave up easily enough, as was par for the course. His real concern was if Perez and Nikki had taken a stronger interest in following him. They weren’t exactly the best investigators in the world, but they were better than most he’d come across, and either one of them could turn into a problem real quick. Or an asset if he played his cards right, recalling Nikki in particular.
The truck slowed to a stop just a couple miles past what could be considered the Bluff Falls city limits; there was a town, and then there wasn’t, simple as that. The place Kevin had directed him to was a gutted-out farmhouse, a place that looked like it had been destroyed by a tornado a decade ago. It was really just the frame of a house next to a silo fitted with rusted and decrepit siding. Beyond the silo was a small barn, at least small for a horse barn; surprisingly, that structure didn’t look all that much worse for wear.
Charlie got out of the truck and walked around until he finally caught sight of a piece of metal sticking up through a mound of mud and dead grass. He kicked at the mound and saw that it was more like a sheet, and it pulled off in one piece. It was really a clever little bit of homemade camouflage. Under the sheet of metal lay a double-door of thick steel, like something left over from the Cold War, when people tried to build underground nuclear survival shelters. There was a brand new chain and lock strung through the handles, but Charlie popped it open easily enough with a couple pieces of wire. “When will people ever learn that size doesn’t matter?” Charlie said to the wind. He had to put his back into swinging the doors open, as they were easily two inches thick, and there was a good chance it actually could have withstood a bomb. There really was nothing like the Red Scare to get people to overdo things. Charlie was too young at that time to have enjoyed the frenzy, but he liked to watch the old spy movies and wondered what it must have been like to work in the old communist countries, maybe turn a debutant or an attaché to an ambassador. The closest thing Charlie had ever had the opportunity to work with was a warlord’s mistress and a bunch of guys with hard-ons for forty virgins. He wondered if any of the guys he’d sent to the next life got to cash that chip in. He hoped not. It would have been anticlimactic for all his hard work.
There were no lights or light switches, so he had to rely on his trusty lighter—stolen off a guy that had tried to pick Charlie’s pocket in Tripoli—to help him see where he was going. The stairs led down about ten feet into a large room, approximately twenty by twenty feet. There, right in the middle of it, sat a block of bags, ten by ten. Each was tightly stuffed and wrapped. There were 100 kilos, and if it was as good as The Baker seemed to think, it could very well be worth at least five million dollars. The deal was supposed to be for fifteen million, so Charlie knew Damon had to have stored the rest somewhere, but that was okay with him. There was no way someone willing to deal in 300 keys’ worth of meth was going to be all right with getting shorted on the deal. The 100 kilos stacked in front of Charlie would be enough. He looked back up the stairs and wondered how many trips it would take for him to load up The Baker’s truck.
On the ride back to the warehouse, Charlie took his time. He really wasn’t in much of a hurry, things were pretty much under control. He had the meth and The Baker, so Damon would have to operate under his terms. All in all, Charlie felt pretty good about himself and his endeavor. Under other circumstances, he might have been a little smug, but he kept thinking about Kay and when he’d seen her lying there on that cold slab. She looked so old, more like his mother had looked the last he could remember her, only different. Kay wasn’t even thirty, but she looked at least forty. Her eyes were so sunken, and her skin looked as if it had been hanging lifelessly off of her bones for years. Charlie thought maybe she’d put weight on since the last time he’d seen her, and the meth had really screwed with her looks. She’d always been pretty, even if she didn’t know what to do with those God-given good looks. Charlie blamed their parents’ split-up for his sister’s inability to behave properly with men, even when she was younger. She needed a father figure, but for the life of him, Charlie couldn’t figure out how she’d equate that to a man like Damon. He hadn’t even met the guy yet, but he was certain he wasn’t role model material.
The ringing of a cell phone snapped Charlie from his memories, and he looked around the cab for the source. In the driver’s console, a small, silver flip-phone vibrated with a restricted phone number. Charlie ignored it; he wasn’t much for prying, and he certainly wasn’t in the mood to talk. The phone stopped ringing for a moment, then started again. Once again, it was a restricted number, and once again Charlie ignored it. He assumed it was Damon, looking for The Baker, but Charlie wasn’t quite ready to deal with that.
Another ring came, but it was a different tone. Charlie looked at the phone and saw that a text message had arrived. He flipped the phone open and read, “PICK UP THE PHONE, CHARLIE.” He found that quite curious, and when the phone rang again, he flipped it open. “Hello?” he said.
On the other end, he heard a whimpering sound, then, “Charlie?” The shaking voice belonged to Dee Dee.
“What’s wrong? How did you get this number? How did you know it would be me?” Charlie knew it was too many questions at once, and he had to calm down.
The voice changed. “So, this is Charlie,” the deep voice said.
“And you are?”
“Rook.”
Charlie didn’t hesitate. “Well, call back when I can talk with the king,” Charlie said. “I haven’t time for pawns.” Then he flipped the phone closed, and took a hard right, pointing the truck to the quickest route out of town. He wondered what kind of a reaction he’d just provoked.
The phone rang again.
“Is this the king? Or at least a knight?”
“Don’t fuck with me,” Rook said.
Charlie flipped the phone closed again.
The phone rang again, and Charlie let it ring four times before answering.
This time, Rook spoke first. “Hang up on me again, and this bitch is dead.”
Charlie didn’t say anything, as he wasn’t entirely sure the best way to play it out. It certainly wasn’t in his plan for Dee Dee to get involved. He said the only thing he could think of to buy himself time. “So go ahead and kill her.” Charlie flipped the phone closed again.
Rook looked Dee Dee up and down, still holding his cell phone in his hand, somewhat dumbfounded. “He told me to kill you, and hung up.” He stared at Dee Dee. “I guess he doesn’t care about you after all.” Before Dee Dee could say anything Rook cracked her with a back hand that knocked her a foot away. He stared at her, eyes swollen with tears, her hand on her cheek. “You better hope he doesn’t hang up again.”
There was no sound in the truck cab as Charlie rolled along. He thought about Dee Dee and whoever Rook was. He wondered if it was worth getting sidetracked at all. When the phone rang again, he answered it. “Yeah?”
“She’s dead.”
Charlie kept driving. “Then why bother calling?” he asked, his voice as cold as the frigid billowing past the truck windows.
“She’s not dead yet, but she will be if you click this shit off in my ear one more time. You want that on your conscience, assuming you
have one?”
“I’ve got worse things on my conscience than a dead stripper,” Charlie said. He heard a slap and scream on the other end. Charlie cursed to himself. He hated having his bluff called and he hated that it was because of a woman he shouldn’t have been close with in the first place.
“Here’s the deal,” Rook said. “I couldn’t care less about her or you. I just want the drugs. Tell me where the drugs are, and I’ll let her go.”
The truck bounced through the darkness of the North Dakota plains, lit only by headlights and the silver-dollar moon. “How will I know she’s away and safe?” Charlie asked.
“Good point. Maybe you should come here and get her.”
“And how do I know that’s safe?” Charlie asked.
“You don’t, but it’s that or I put a bullet in her head, mind you not until I let the boys run a train on her for a couple days.”
Charlie clenched his jaw. There weren’t any options, and he had to go to her, but that meant he needed to get to a graveyard first. “Fine. I’ll be there, but I’m over an hour out of town.”
“Sixty minutes, and the bitch is dead.”
The phone went dead, and Charlie gunned the acceleration. The truck bounced and bottomed out more than a few times as Charlie swerved it off the road. He pounded the steering wheel, as if that would convince the truck to move faster. He didn’t have much time, and was going to need a ride.
Chapter 23
Rook was on the motel bed watching TV, his tailored suit coat hung over a chair to keep it from wrinkling. He was just about ready to order a skin flick when Trey, one of the dope pushers from the west side he oversaw, looked over from the window and said, “Hey, a guy in a porkpie hat just walked into the parking lot.” Rook had five guys with him—Trey, Stony, Marcus, and two men he didn’t know, but he was glad to have them for the extra guns, if nothing else. Rook stood up and walked to the window, pulling Dee Dee along with him; he knew she could verify that it was, in fact, Charlie. From the second level window Rook could see Charlie’s hands were out of his pockets, and he was alone. There wasn’t even a car anywhere around.
